


Death in Argentina

by lalalyds2



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, I've been re-watching Psych, Murder Mystery, Spellcest, and i've got it all written - so you won't have to wait!, and it's v G-rated, babes this actually has a PLOT, the T is for death and like murder mystery type stuff, you gotta wait till the very end for that tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-30 05:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18309092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalyds2/pseuds/lalalyds2
Summary: Hilda gets a letter from an ex-girlfriend, asking her to come to Argentina.Zelda comes with, as does Sabrina.There's jealousy and southern accents, and something not quite right . . .ORThis author stared at all her WIPs and decided to write something completely different - something with PLOT!  oh dear . . .





	1. Don't Cry For Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thegaygumballmachine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thegaygumballmachine/gifts).



> for sweet, sweet Kate! thanks for letting me scream about this fic without actually telling you anything   
> i know, i am very cruel

 

“Look at that.”

An envelope is set near Zelda’s breakfast egg. She peels on the shell and gives a cursory glance to the looping cursive.

The name gives her pause.

Zelda looks at her little sister, but Hilda’s nibbling on her toast and avoiding eye contact as she reads the cream white letter.

“ _Well._ That’s certainly unexpected. You haven’t heard from Bellanna in, what — 94 years?”

“82.” Hilda says around her toast.

“Who’s Bellanna?” Sabrina asks, her pancakes lay forgotten and soaked in syrup in front of her. Ambrose is dozing on the chair beside her, giving no notice he’s hearing or caring for this conversation.

“What does she want?” Zelda’s question is dripping with exhaustion though it’s only 9 a.m. Sabrina pouts at being ignored.

“Oh dear,” Hilda tuts, squinting through the rest of the letter. “It seems as though poor Warren has passed on.”

“Who’s Warren?”

“That’s odd,” Zelda says with a frown. Sabrina crosses her arms. Ambrose gives a tiny snore.

“He was only 372. Far too young to die of natural causes.”

“You can remember Warren’s age, but not how long it’s been since I’ve seen Bellanna?”

Zelda’s on the cusp of a retort, when —

“Who _are_ these people?” Sabrina’s little fist raps on the table, irate at all this name dropping without any hint of exposition.

Zelda admonishes bad manners, Hilda fritters an apology and whisks away Zelda’s castoff plate.

“Bellanna’s an old friend, love.” She tells Sabrina. “Warren is — _was,_ her late husband.”

“And Bellanna was Auntie Hilda’s last lover.” Ambrose supplies abruptly, giving all but Zelda a little jump for the scare.

Sabrina’s mouth falls open, from Ambrose’ sudden wake or the shocking news or both.

“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend, Auntie.”

“ _Ex_ -girlfriend.” Zelda corrects, picking up the Wall Street Journal and perusing it as if stock exchange is the most interesting thing since Eisenhower or sliced bread or anything other than the current conversation.

“Yes, ex-girlfriend.” The look Hilda throws at Zelda gets stuck in the news pages and doesn’t hit its target. Then she smiles at Sabrina, nose crinkling in past memory.

“I met Bellanna when I was in England. She had the dreamiest accent I ever did hear. Just scrumptious.”

Sabrina can’t help but giggle because Hilda’s sigh is so sweet it’s practically cartoon. Zelda grumbles something incoherently transatlantic into ink print.

“They were very striking together,” Ambrose chimes in, popping up from where he was lounging. “A southern belle and an English rose.”

“You never saw them together.” Zelda’s muffled voice floats up.

Ambrose shrugs.

“I saw pictures.”

Sabrina laughs, content now with at least a few answers. Tucks into her pancakes, then—

“So is that all she said in her letter? Her husband died?”

And Hilda’s cheeks go pink, like when she’s embarrassed or about to ask for something.

“She’s asked me to come to the funeral. Well, perform the rites, as it were.”

“ _You?_ ” Zelda’s paper goes down. “ _Why?_ ”

Hilda’s curls bounce as her head goes quirk, a telltale sign that Zelda’s questions have rankled.

“ _Because._ I’m a mortician. And her friend.”

“And these 82 years of radio silence indicate that _how_ , exactly?”

Hilda’s little growl of frustration has Ambrose standing up, a hand to her shoulder as he takes his empty teacup to the sink. Sabrina knows she should probably change the subject, but she has more questions.

Curiosity killed the cat, but necromancy is more acceptable on animals anyway.

“Where’s the funeral?”

“Argentina.”

Zelda’s splutter surprises them all.

“You are _not_ going to Argentina. Out of the question.”

“Good thing I’m not asking.”

“Hilda!” She stands. “No.”

“Zelda!” She also stands. “Yes.”

“I am the head of this house, and I forbid it.”

“I don’t need your permission, I’m—“

Zelda feels Ambrose and Sabrina’s stare, grabs Hilda’s wrist and doesn’t let her finish her sentence, dragging them both out of the kitchen.

The sudden silence is awkward. Ambrose gives Sabrina that, ‘ _you had to ask, Cous_ ’ look.

“Well.” He tries. “That . . . Escalated.”

Sabrina rolls her eyes, takes her half-eaten pancakes to the sink and goes off to eavesdrop.

“Honestly, Ambrose. They’re like an elevator falling up.”

And with that confusing sentence, she follows after them.

 

~*~

 

“You can’t be serious, Hilda.”

Sabrina’s ear is to the office door, brow furrowed as she makes effort to listen in. Mahogany makes for a pretty door, but very hard for hearing.

“Satan’s sake, Zelda. I’m a grown woman, I know how to travel.”

“You haven’t stepped a foot out of Greendale in decades.”

The words muffle further. Hilda must be hissing, the way she does when her arguing is petering out into things she blames Zelda for.

Sabrina’s eyes squint, as though it will help her ears.

“So you’re just going to up and leave Sabrina?”

There’s righteousness in Zelda’s voice, she’s got Hilda’s weak spot.

“I’ll take her with me.”

Sabrina pumps her fist, secretly cheering and glad it’s the summer. She’s never gotten to travel much of anywhere, so even if it had been in the school season, she’d still find a way to go.

Ambrose interrupts her glee, crouches down and sticks his own ear to the door.

“So there, Zelda. We’re all going now. You, me, Ambrose, and Sabrina. Happy now?”

“I’m the furthest from it!”

Words go in and out like a flickering radio station.

Ambrose shakes his head, and Sabrina is surprised he doesn’t want to go. He’s still under some sort of arrest, but he can travel now, with vigilant supervision. She thought he’d be glad for a chance to leave the house.

“Bellanna’s husband has died, Zelda. She needs someone to be there for her.”

“Well why must it be you?”

“Sister, I’m getting on that plane.”

Sabrina’s knees are starting to hurt, pressed in the floor from her crouching.

It’s too quiet to hear anything.

The sudden shout has her head rearing back.

“ _BECAUSE EDWARD AND DIANA DIED ON THOSE PLANES!_ ”

And then it’s not only her neck that’s hurting. Ambrose’s hand is comforting on hers.

She doesn’t feel quite so keen on traveling now.

The door whips open, both she and Ambrose fall into it.

Zelda scarcely even glares at them, her ring finger pushing hard into the inner corner of her left eye. She flees stiffly. Doesn’t look back to see Hilda, arms hanging limply at her sides, mouth open and eyes brimming.

She blinks twice, catches sight of her nephew and niece looking as shamefaced as anything. Sniffles once and shuffles the paperwork around on the desk.

She doesn’t look up as they both tiptoe away.

 

~*~

 

Dinner is stifling.

Hilda’s made mushroom soup, Zelda’s very least favorite. It is creamy and mouthwatering and just so very petty.

Zelda, never one to back down a challenge, takes elegant little spoonfuls and doesn’t say a word.

The entire table ignores how her eye twitches.

The day had inched by, second by excruciatingly tense second. Hilda’d been mooning in the office, Zelda draining corpses in the basement, Sabrina and Ambrose steering clear from the both of them. Something has to give, or the very air itself is going to explode.

Hilda’s chair scrapes loud and petulant as she stands, getting dessert. Zelda pushes away her only-a-quarter-empty bowl and tries not to look eager.

Hilda brings in a store-bought pie. It is both an insult to Zelda’s tongue and her own culinary pride, but the message is clear.

If Hilda doesn’t get her way, then nobody does.

Sabrina would be proud of her aunt for sticking up for herself if her stomach wasn’t crying. This is a war no one will win, especially not taste buds. She wonders who will give in first.

“ _Fine_ , Hilda.” Zelda grits out, sagging shoulders her only sign of defeat. “Go to Argentina.”

Hilda beams, clutches her apron in happy fists, shoulders hiked up and head scrunched down in excitement. She goes to Zelda, arms out as if to hug. Pauses, thinks better on it and squeezes her hand.

“Thank you, Sister.” She goes to leave, presumably to start packing, but Zelda’s grip goes vice.

“But,” the older Spellman states, the steel in her tone demanding obedience. “You are _not_ getting on a plane.”

A pause, then Hilda nods. Already, her eyes are far away.

“Alright.”

“ _And._ ”

Hilda’s eyes roll.

“I’m coming with you.”

Hilda pouts for a millisecond, then she’s nodding and bouncing a bit on her toes. Impatience looks childish on a long-suffering woman.

“I’m coming too!” Sabrina pipes up, inserting herself into this handheld agreement.

Zelda’s scoff is weak, which means there’s wiggle room for compromise.

“You most certainly are _not_.”

“I’ve never been anywhere.” Sabrina’s too old for whining, so that’s not what she’ll call this. “Please? Aunt Hilda already said she’d be okay if I went with.”

Both Spellman sisters flush, the office argument still so fresh in its hurts, and Sabrina knows she’s miscalculated. She tries again differently.

“Think of all I could learn with you two. And! I promise I won’t get into any trouble.”

Their disbelief is palpable. Sabrina blushes, and knows she probably cannot make good on that promise.

“Well, I’ll certainly get into less trouble if I’m with you and not by myself.”

Oddly, both sisters look to Ambrose. Hilda, guilty. Zelda, exasperated.

“I’m staying home.” He offers. “Someone needs to run the business, and It might be nice to have the house to myself.”

The looks are all disbelieving. He holds up his hand, and his grin is real.

“I swear. Satan’s claw.”

Hilda hugs him tight, but he’s seated and she’s standing so his head is awkwardly clutched in her arms, but it’s endearing because Hilda’s happy. There’s a collective smile when everyone in the kitchen hears her excited squeal from the hall.

Zelda stands with a sigh, off to pack her own things in her room or maybe get drunk in the parlor.

And then it’s just two.

“Are you really okay?” Sabrina asked, excited to go, reluctant to leave.

Ambrose smiles.

“Really, really. I’ve already been to Argentina. And besides, I want to throw a party.”

And ah, there’s the crux of it.

Sabrina nose wrinkles.

“Well now I kind of want to stay too.”

Ambrose laughs, gently knuckles her shoulder.

“Go travel, Cous. You’ll be glad you did. Just make sure the Aunties don’t kill each other while you’re down there.”

 

~*~

 

They choose a place they can picture clearly and teleport to Neuquén’s airport in the afternoon, nearly passing out from strain. Even with the three of them clutching hands and sharing energy, the magic had been taxing.

Sabrina sits down right on ground, Hilda takes off her coat. Zelda turns up her nose and tries very hard not to cough.

“Hilda, darlin’! If you’re not a sight for sore eyes.”

Sabrina stares from the ground, goes bug-eyed.

Gliding towards them is a goddess of springtime, with long dark tresses and gleaming teeth. There is a slit on the side of her floral dress and the legs just keep on going.

In flat sandals, she is taller than Zelda in heels.

She engulfs little Hilda in Amazonian arms, laughs as she squeaks and rocks her a little from side to side. Zelda grows a shade paler. Sabrina stands hastily.

“Hilda, you’ve no idea how glad I am to see you, I’ve missed you somethin’ fierce.”

“Yes,” Zelda butts in, brushing some invisible dirt off her pristine skirt. “I’d imagine she does _indeed_ have no idea, given how little you’ve tried to contact her.”

The tall flower wilts, pulls back from Hilda, clutches her hands to her V-necked bosom.

“I know, I’m terribly sorry Hilda darlin’. I’ve been awful.”

Hilda just looks dazed. Zelda rolls her eyes. Bellanna continues.

“Warren was terrible jealous, honey. Didn’t like rememberin’ I wasn’t always his. I guess that ‘ _always_ ’ got cut shorter than we’d thought.” Her face crumples at that, and then she’s scooping up Hilda again, and Hilda’s soothing her as she wails.

Zelda’s eyes go heavenwards once more. She leans over to Sabrina, mutters, “Hilda has a thing for the dramatic ones, Satan save us.”

Sabrina thinks of the academy awards drama she’s seen in the past _forever_ , coming from her oldest aunt.

She thinks better on it and says nothing.

 

~*~

 

Bellanna drives them down a dirt road in her open Jeep. Sabrina is glad for her headband and tries desperately not to look at her Aunt Zelda for fear of laughing and ending her own life.

Wind and pin curls don’t mix well.

Hilda is in the front, holding a hand on her straw hat and the other clutching tight to her seat belt.

Bellanna talks with both her hands and arms. The steering wheel is often left to fend for itself.

It is a huge relief once they reach the house, mostly intact, and Sabrina’s reduced to bug-eyes once more.

Windows and open glass doors and wind gently dancing on white cotton curtains. Rounded pillars and flat rock walkways and sandstone. There’s a bridge between the driveway and the front porch, and a koi pond burbles underneath it.

Sabrina leaves her bag in the trunk and runs to it. It spans wide and sparkling. She could bet it goes all the way around the house.

“It accumulates into one big pool in the back,” Bellanna calls to her, carrying both Hilda and Sabrina’s bags as if they weigh nothing. “That’s where Big Henry lounges.”

“Bellanna’s got an alligator for a familiar.” Hilda says, that dazed look finally starting to dissipate.

She’s holding Zelda’s suitcase and failing not to struggle.

“He is useless.” Zelda states, arms empty and crossed, looking distinctly unimpressed as she surveys the house’s grandeur.

Hilda’s snort is good-natured but tired.

“Says the woman with a paraplegic dog.”

Zelda’s nudge on Hilda’s shoulder almost sends her into the koi pond.

Bellanna comes back, takes the case from Hilda’s hand, switches it to one side with ease, and intertwines their now free fingers. She pulls Hilda into the house. Sabrina and Zelda follow behind, and Sabrina tries not to notice how Zelda glowers.

“Warren built this for me as a weddin’ present,” Bellanna’s saying, eyes misting over fondly. “Made it a real dream home, ‘cept for a roundabout porch. He hates — hat _ed_ porches.”

“I’m so sorry, love.” Hilda says for the umpteenth time, patting her manicured hand.

“How did he die?” Zelda asks. Hilda sends her a look for the bluntness, she just shrugs.

“He was checkin’ on his oil rigs, simple routine. He musta slipped or somethin’ though, ‘cause he was gone for days, until — until his body washed up in the Basin.”

She’s going to full on weep again, and Sabrina figures anyone with a story that sad has the right to, but her teenage mind is reeling on the wealth of these people.

“He had oil rigs? Why? Was he mortal?”

That makes Bellanna laugh, albeit wetly, and it makes Sabrina glow a little.

“He was the finest warlock on this end of the Americas. Just liked his day job, is all. Witches don’t live on spells alone.”

Zelda’s scoff is audible. To which part of Bellanna’s statements, it’s unclear.

Then the tall woman claps her hands, slaps on a cheery smile, and tugs Hilda with her again.

“Let me show you your rooms.”

Zelda makes a tutting noise, her hands splaying possessive on Hilda and Sabrina’s shoulders.

“We’re sharing a room.” She states.

Hilda pouts, eyes wide and innocent and accusing. Sabrina is simply confused.

Bellanna barely even bats an eyelash. Apparently, she is used to Zelda’s demands when moody.

“Fine by me, sugar. Helps in the long run anyhow, for when the rest of the coven gets here.”

She leads them to a door further down the hall than they’d previously stopped at, opens it with a flourish.

Tall windows on the entirety of the far wall, a breeze wafting in and tickling the gray curtains. Two queen beds, sheets whiter than snow and downy looking. Two dressers with drawers big enough to hold a meeting in and a private bathroom.

“Think this’ll do?” Bellanna asks breezily. Sabrina nods very hard.

“It’s lovely, thank you.” Hilda says, squeezing her hands. Then she calls over her shoulder, “isn’t it lovely, Zelds?”

Zelda’s grunt is noncommittal as she wanders to the windows.

Hilda rolls her eyes, and then she’s swept up in a heady, perfumed embrace.

“I’m just so glad you’re here, Hilda darlin’. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Hilda smiles and says of course, and then Bellanna is gone to let them rest.

Sabrina starfishes on one bed, determined to feel every inch of its plushness all by herself.

Zelda gingerly sits down on the right side of the other bed, Hilda climbs into the left with a yawn.

“I’m going to have some _words_ with you,” she mutters to her sister, even as drowsiness shutters her eyes closed.

“Good, because I have several choice ones of my own.”

But the call of sleep is louder than the need to argue.

Exhausted, the Spellmans walk into slumber like meeting an old friend.

 

~*~

 

It’s strange to be in a morgue that’s not their own, Sabrina decides.

The Spellmans had slept and woken, freshened up and gotten to work. Bellanna had given Hilda the keys to a Rover, and _Zelda_ had driven them to the funeral home.

The basement is white and sterile, no seafoam tiles on the wall. The tables are stainless steel, not Victorian porcelain, and Sabrina finds she likes her home base much better. Feels less clinical at the Spellman mortuary. Perhaps less professional, but certainly more personal.

Or maybe she shouldn’t compare funeral homes. Doesn’t seem in good taste.

And neither are her thoughts once the sheet above Warren’s face is lifted.

He had not been a pretty man.

His brow protrudes too much, his lips are thin, and his ears stick out like a hitchhiker’s thumb.

“Bellanna had Aunt Hilda, but she married _him_?”

She fails to keep the incredulity from her voice. It’s not nice to judge based on appearances, but to her credit, she is half human.

“Bellanna didn’t leave me for him, my pet.” Hilda says as she checks his toe tag, making sure it’s the right man. “She met him two decades after me. It was only after they got engaged that she stopped writing.”

“And good riddance,” Zelda says, pulling the sheet off the rest of the way and checking over the body. “It finally made you stop pining for weeks on end after every letter.”

Hilda is glaring at Zelda from across the table, but Sabrina can’t see it because she’d rather not look at the body of someone her aunts know. Somehow, it’s the knowing that makes her squeamish.

“Then I don’t get it,” Sabrina says, staring at her hands. “Why’d you two split up? It doesn’t seem like you and Bellanna got into a big fight, or anything. You still get along.”

Hilda sighs as she lifts the cadaver’s arm, checking for marks.

“People don’t always have to fight to reach an end, lamb. We just wanted different things.”

Zelda clears her throat. Hilda hands her a scalpel and a small mirror.

“Such as?” Sabrina prompts.

“Oh, I can barely remember,” Hilda flusters. It means she very much can. “I think she wanted to change covens, and I just wouldn’t do it.”

“I didn’t know you could change covens,” Sabrina says. It’s not something she’s heard of before.

“It’s highly frowned upon.” Zelda’s hands are steady as she makes an incision. Hilda hands her clamps.

“But still. The way she acts around you, Aunt Hilda, it seems like you were in love. Why wouldn’t you go chase after that?”

Hilda’s gaze flits to her sister. Zelda refuses to look anywhere besides the newly gaping cavity.

“I would have had to leave your Auntie, my love.” She says softly, and then it clicks very loudly and rightly in Sabrina’s inquisitive brain. “I would have had to leave all the Spellman clan. I didn’t want to do that.”

Sabrina hums, and feels like there’s something she should say to ease this newfound revelation. Thankfully, Zelda beats her to it. She snaps her fingers and points down.

“Hilda. Look.”

Hilda looks.

“Oh. Oh dear.”

“And so the plot thickens.” Zelda’s voice betrays nothing but mild intrigue.

Curiosity peaked, Sabrina hops from her stool and goes to the operating table. It’s not the gore that she minds (although it certainly isn’t attractive), it is the contents of Warren’s stomach that has her going queasy.

In the grayish pink of the split open stomach, there’s a bitten-off _human_ index finger.

Sabrina is glad she’d skipped a snack.

“Well,” Zelda states, flicking her hair back in one sweeping motion.

“Either Warren was munching on long pig as a daily source of protein, or we have a murder on our hands.”


	2. Well, You Can Cry A Little

The car ride back isn’t as silent as Sabrina had supposed.

Indeed, Zelda and Hilda toss each other theories, Hilda’s less sordid than Zelda’s, both intent on finding out what exactly happened to Warren.

Nothing like a good murder to stimulate conversation.

“Maybe,” Hilda muses. “Maybe he just slipped, as Bellanna stated. Fell over the rail, his open mouth hit the hands of a worker who saw and was trying to catch him, and then gravity and teeth bit the thing off?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hilda.”

For once, Zelda’s scoff does nothing to hinder her sister. Hilda twists around her seat belt, sticks her tongue out at Zelda’s profile.

“Then what’s your guess then?”

“Crime of passion.”

Hilda’s snort is tinged with scandal.

“Oh, go off, it couldn’t possibly be. How would that even _work_?”

“Finger in the mouth, plus a particularly violent orgasm, equals . . .” Zelda clicks her teeth together.  Hilda titters. 

Sabrina wonders if they’ve forgotten she’s in the back seat.

Hilda’s shaking her head and laughing because of the ridiculousness and absurdity and because her cheeks can’t take the blush when Zelda’s in good spirits enough to tease her.

“Rubbish. No one cums that hard.”

“How would you know?”

“How would _you_? You’ve still got all your fingers, as far as I know.”

“That’s the fun of orgies, little sister. Lots of fingers to spare.”

Hilda squeaks, and the corner of Zelda’s mouth quirks up like a victory or a smirk.

Sabrina coughs very hard.

Blonde heads whip to her seat in reaction, the steering wheel whips too.

“Zelds!” Hilda is yelping, and Zelda is correcting, and then the vehicle is once again on the straight and narrow.

Cheeks burn like the summer heat.

“I just wanted to know,” Sabrina says, more meekly than intended. “If Bellanna’s coven is coming to dinner tonight. Maybe they’ll know more about if Warren’s been doing any double dealings. I want to ask questions.”

“Little miss detective then, are you?” Zelda asks, eyeing her through the rearview mirror. There’s still mirth there in the blue, so Sabrina breathes out easier.

“Mysteries are intriguing.”

“Aren’t they just?” Hilda is mumbling, and her side eye catches Zelda’s side eye, and the laughter there makes Sabrina glad she came with them.

The sisters Spellman loosen up while traveling, it appears.

The dynamic shift is still odd though, so she requests the radio be turned on and they listen to tango all the way back, each stewing on questions to ask at a funeral party.

 

~*~

 

Party indeed.

Sabrina hasn’t witnessed a funeral within the Church of Night, so she’d assumed it would go something like the mortal ceremonies they performed at home.

No such similarities. The witches and warlocks are decked in black, but that’s the extent of it.

They drink and laugh and burst into warbling unholy verse, giggling all the while. They toast to Warren and Bellanna and the afterlife, but really — they’re just toasting to toast.

Bellanna is flowing in dark sheer, and she won’t stop leading Hilda around the room, introducing her to people, showing her off, clutching at her hands.

Sabrina and Zelda are on the leather couch. Sabrina’s legs are sticking to it unpleasantly, all the extra bodies make it so the breeze can’t cool her down. Zelda is perfectly coiffed, limbs tense and coiled. She won’t stop glaring daggers in Bellanna’s direction.

The woman in question is giggling, leaning over so close her nose keeps nudging on Hilda’s curls. She’s in another dress with a side split — Sabrina’s convinced that’s the only style she wears. She wears it well, wears a laugh like a constant necklace, wears drunkenness like a shimmer on her forehead.

“They’re pretty cute together.” Sabrina says, though she knows it’ll only make Zelda surly. She can’t help it.

“Bellanna’s too tall,” Zelda mutters, takes a full swing of her drink. Sabrina bemoans that fact that, though traveling changes drinking limits, she’s still underage.

“And she’s bossy.”

The pot calling kettle.

“This coven seems to like her,” Sabrina says.

It’s like she’s _wanting_ to bury herself even deeper than a six-foot grave.

“This coven is filled to the brim with hedonists.”

“What’s so wrong with that?”

Zelda tilts her head back, spills the rest of her drink down her throat, and stands.

“I thought you wanted to ask the guests your detective questions?”

“I do.” Sabrina pops up, wipes the sweat from the backs of her legs.

“Then I suggest you do so before everyone’s too drunk to give you anything substantial.”

Zelda leaves her be, but Sabrina keeps a lookout for her through the night, even when she does end up asking people questions.

Eventually, Zelda wanders to Hilda’s side as though on accident. Hilda is giggling on Campari and orange juice. She drops Bellanna’s hand as Zelda comes closer.

Sabrina watches as Hilda leans forward to hear whatever Zelda’s whispering to her. She watches as Hilda’s head throws back, her laughter pealing bright and giddy. She watches as Hilda’s arm hovers around Zelda’s waist before it settles there, light and unobtrusive.

She watches Zelda smile, small and pleased and secretly very happy.

She watches some more, and then she asks her questions.

 

~*~

 

“It is a tragedy, what happened to Warren.” A gold-eyed man tells her from behind a hookah. “But it isn’t unexpected. Warlocks can’t live forever, especially when they take as many risks as he did.”

“Warren took risks?” Sabrina asks, mentally cataloguing this guy’s words with others’ testimonies.

Adults will spout quite a lot of honesty when high and in front of a teenager.

It’s useful, but she’s learned quite a lot more than she’d cared to about these rather strange strangers. At least this man had worked with Warren before, although when describing his job, Sabrina hadn’t understood a word.

“Warren kept placing his rigs a little too close to competing companies in the Vaca Muerta. His protection spells kept things from escalating, but the threats got pretty colorful. I’d imagine it was stressful as hell.”

The man inhales deep, eyes closing, and the conversation is close to being dismissed.

“But what do I know? I’m not his partner. I’m not his accountant.”

He puffs out smoke. It is deep purple and thick like cloud soup.

“I don’t even know what day it is.”

And then his eyes glaze over, he giggles, and then he goes entirely useless.

 

~*~

 

The facts, as they say, are these:

Warren was a powerful man, in both mortal and magical affairs.

He was passionate and short tempered, and he loved his wife very much.

He was, as far as anyone knew, quite monogamous, which was rare among this coven, and upon request from his wife, did not ever partake in eating long pig.

He was equally well liked and well cursed, raking in money on dangerous gambles, as prepared to go broke as to grow billions.

He was, as any, just a man who had lived and was now gone.

And now, Sabrina is as stumped as she’s ever been.

 

~*~

 

The party winds down to a dwindle, people skulking off to their bedrooms or to _other_ witches’ bedrooms, and then it’s just the Spellmans and Bellanna.

“You think poor Warren was murdered?” Her southern accent wobbles with her lower lip, she holds Hilda’s hand very tightly.

“We do,” Sabrina says apologetically. “We’re still trying to figure out by whom.”

Zelda pushes Sabrina’s hair behind her ear, motherly and proud, and she feels how the day is starting to wear on her.

“But everyone liked him.”

“Except his competitors.” Zelda states. It’s the kindest she’s spoken to Bellanna all night.

Sabrina lays out her thought process so far and Bellanna listens and crumples further, until her head is on Hilda’s shoulder and the tears flow freely.

Warren had been a risk taker. The empire he’d grown was right on the fence of other equally powerful people. With every personal success came a professional enemy. He wouldn’t sell to bigger companies either, and his ability to scry precisely where oil would be made many people suspicious and angry.

Sabrina’s reasonings make sense, and Hilda holds the burdened widow as she cries.

“There, there,” she soothes, hands rubbing comforting circles on Bellanna’s shoulder. “Let’s get you to bed and I’ll whip up a nice poultice, have you dreaming and resting in no time.”

“Will you stay with me?” Her sniffling seems purposefully pathetic.

“Of course, dear.”

There’s a kick under the table. Hilda yelps and glares sullenly at the woman across from her.

“I’ll always help a friend in need, won’t I, _Zelds_?”

“Depends on what kind of friend, and what kind of help she’s asking for.”

Hilda’s eye roll is exaggerated as she stands and helps her tall ex-lover up. Bellanna seems to curl into the short woman’s cardiganed frame, so much smaller than she’d been only an hour ago, and Hilda walks her along.

In the dimness of the hall light, Hilda looks as she often does when someone needs her. Steel wrapped up in soft, support in her certain silence, strength emanating in waves.

Perhaps it’s magic or just Hilda herself, but whenever she’s like this, it makes others feel safe, strong, more able to knit themselves back together even when the world is falling apart.

It makes Sabrina and Zelda sigh, tired yet somehow lighter, traipsing along after them.

When they get to Bellanna’s room, Hilda places her gently at her vanity. Her eyes meet Zelda’s in silent question, and then Zelda’s taking out Bellanna’s hairpins while Hilda administers cold cream.

“Sabrina, love,” Hilda whispers. “Could you be a lamb and fetch us a dressing gown? Where is it, Bell dear?”

“In the closet.”

Sabrina nods, walks around the king-sized poster bed, resisting the urge to pass her hand along the silken sheets.

She opens the closet with a gentle swing — shrieks like a banshee.

“Satan’s sake,” Zelda says, coming to her side. “Whatever is the matter — oh.”

There is a man in the closet, very tall with eyes still wide, and very, very dead.

They are stock still in shock, Bellanna turns and screams too, cold-creamed face so white and her mouth an O of terror, and then the body leans and falls right down on them.

 

~*~

 

It is four in the morning when the Spellmans collapse on kitchen counter stools, the cold marble top soothing on their aching heads.

Since they’d found the body, they’d been swarmed with sleepy, half-drunken coven members trying to see what all the fuss was about, a call to this coven’s high priestess to let her know of another murder, and then herding everyone back into their rooms so Zelda and Hilda could examine the body.

He had been Pierce Knotwood, Warren’s business partner and friend. Further proof someone was trying to steal their rigs, or at least put them out of business.

Bellanna is an understandable mess, fitfully sleeping on the couch as Hilda supervises from the kitchen. It had taken a bit too much foxglove to finally get her to rest.

Zelda gets up to make coffee, sets it gently before her grateful young charge. Sabrina takes baby sips, blowing on the dark liquid, trying to make her brain connect all these spiderwebs onto one culprit. She feels very young, she just doesn’t know.

As she rests face first on the cold island counter, she sees in her peripheral Zelda handing her sister a mug of tea. Hilda murmurs her thanks and takes it in gulps.

“You look dreadful, sister,” she says, Hilda huffs at this truthful statement. “You should get some rest.”

“I don’t think I can. This whole thing has got me in a tizzy. I’m worried.”

“I know.”

“I’m not sure we should have brought Sabrina. This is not as cut and dry as I’d thought.”

For once, it is Zelda that’s soothing.

“She’s safe with us. And Satan knows if we’d left her at home with Ambrose we wouldn’t _have_ a home to go back to.”

Sabrina resents that statement greatly, is too tired to interject a rebuttal.

“I’m worried for Bellanna as well. What if whoever killed Warren and Pierce comes back to finish whatever they’ve started?”

“Do you want to take her home with us for a while?” Zelda’s question is soft, surprisingly without any hidden barbs at all. “We could keep her safe.”

Hilda blinks twice, as if her tired eyes and ears are making things up.

“But you don't like her. You’ve never liked her.”

Zelda sips her coffee and doesn’t meet Hilda’s questioning gaze.

“She matters to you.”

“Yes.”

“You matter to me.”

There is a choked little “ _oh_ ,” and then Zelda’s back turns and Sabrina can’t see either of their faces anymore.

“So, it’s your decision, little sister. What do you want to do?”

She can’t see beyond Zelda’s stiff cotton shoulders, but Sabrina’s nearly certain they’re both leaning in closer.

Her head tilts because her neck is starting to hurt. It pushes on her mug. The glass scraping against marble has the sisters jerking far apart, and then Hilda is scuttling about the kitchen to make breakfast muffins and Zelda is shooing Sabrina off to bed.

The last things she hears before closing the bedroom door and falling into glorious sleep are her aunties’ rumbling voices, talking soft and low.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i kinda like writing sabrina as a witchy nancy drew, whatcha think?


	3. Don't Cry Because It's Over (just kidding, cry a lot)

They don’t do much the next day.

Hilda and Zelda mostly speak in hushed whispers, keeping vigilant over Bellanna’s still overcrowded house, Zelda managing the guests and Hilda managing Bellanna.

The beautiful woman had been taking her husband’s accident in stride before, believing that when tragedies happen it’s best to move on bravely. Now, with bad intent hovering near and dangerous, proof that this is not the will of the Dark Lord himself, she cannot keep her upper lip stiff.

Hilda makes cocoa and tries to make her smile by regaling Sabrina with tales of their time together.

Bellanna had been quite the hippie. For several summers, she and Hilda had lived barefoot in a cottage and kept a garden so big it could have grown in a fairytale. Except whenever young men had climbed over the fence to pick the greens,instead of hexing them, Bellanna had put them to work and given them armfuls of vegetables once they were done.

Hilda had kept bees, the same ones she’s got back home, and they had taken honey in their tea, eating fresh fruits and cut greens and lived lush and idyllic.

Hilda dims when Sabrina asks where Aunt Zee had been.

“Oh, she had been in Nepal then, hadn’t she?” Hilda wonders, thinking back on it. “She was very busy, your aunt. Didn’t have time to visit.”

Bellanna’s hum tells a different story.

“Zelda didn’t like to _share_.”

Hilda splutters, and when she asks Bellanna to elaborate, she's interrupted by the man with the golden eyes Sabrina had talked to last night coming into the room.

“Sorry to bother, but I was told to go to the rig and pick up Knotwood’s things. Is there anything you need while I’m out?”

“No, thank you, Seymour.” Bellanna says. He shrugs and walks out.

The two older women renew their reminiscing about days past, and Sabrina uses this chance to sneak out. She whispers a cloaking spell and follows after Seymour on silent feet.

 

~*~

 

It had been almost _too_ easy to follow him.

Perhaps he was still high off last night’s fumes or just plain unobservant, but Sabrina’d climbed into the back of his car and he’d been none the wiser. Just crooned poorly to the radio and driven to the rig. Sabrina had held on tight (unable to use her seat belt in fear of giving herself away) and had stared out the window as beautiful landscapes passed her by.

Someday, when there weren’t so many murders to solve, she’d like to come back here a while.

She waits till Seymour’s turned off the engine, locked the car, and headed inside before she releases her spell. She clicks the car's unlock button, crosses her fingers and hopes it doesn’t set off the alarm.

It doesn’t.

A sigh of relief, then she’s sneaking into the office space on the rig, searching for clues.

Warren’s office is already cleaned bare, no signs of anything. Seymour is in Knotwood’s office, so she goes into the accountant’s room. Jessa Darkall, according to the name plate.

Sabrina praises the woman for choosing accounting, then she starts to snoop.

There’s nothing in the drawers except a stapler, a calculator, two rubber erasers, five ballpoint pens that makes the erasers useless, a black knit hat, a notepad, a lanyard, and a ball of colorful rubber bands. There are also some mock-ups of a new rigging site, but the sketches are hard to make out in the dim light.

She slumps back in the swivel chair, disappointed.

But then Seymour’s out of the office and looking through Jessa’s window. Sabrina startles, lunges under the desk as he opens the door.

“Alright, kid. I know you’re here.”

Her heart is a hummingbird thumping in her throat.

“I don’t really mind, but Jessa doesn’t like people touching her stuff.”

Sabrina clasps her arms around her knees, keeps all her toes and fingers out of sight under the safety of the desk. Eyes dart quickly, scared to be found. They catch on pictures taped to the inside of the desk. 

The evidence is incomprehensible, until suddenly it isn’t.

If it’s possible, Sabrina’s eyes go ever wider. She pops her head from out under the desk and Seymour shrieks, high and startled.

“Don’t _do_ that to a grown warlock!” He says, hand reaching up to clutch at his heart. “I could have hexed you!”

Sabrina is up and scrambling to snatch evidence, picking up pictures and the drawings and the rubber band ball for good measure.

“I know and I’m sorry Seymour, I really am, but we gotta go back.”

“What?”

She pulls on his arm, nearly dropping her papers in doing so, and hopes she hasn’t picked the wrong stranger to trust.

“I’ll explain everything on the way, I promise, but we have to go now. I think my aunties are in trouble.”

 

~*~

 

Bellanna goes quiet after a while, eyes shifting from fond to pensive, back to fond again. Then to something far older than any emotion.

She fiddles with some infinitesimal crease on the bedspread, watches her fingers plucking at silk.

“How much did you hate me,” she asks Hilda very quietly. “Once I was gone?”

Hilda stops with her mixing of lotion and rose hip and lavender, head tilted back as she ponders the question.

“Not so much in the beginning, I suppose. You had your reasons for leaving, I had my reasons to stay.” She says, British lilt going soft and honest, growing crisp on the vulnerability.

“But it hurt very much when you stopped sending me letters. I guess it hadn’t dawned on me until then that you weren’t just gone, you'd actually left  _me_.”

“I’m sorry,” Bellanna whispers, the eyes she’d mostly managed to keep dry starting to well again.

Hilda smiles soothingly, briskly finishing her remedy and closing the whole deal with a mason jar lid.

It's what she does when she can't get over something, keeps it sealed and far removed.  Call it compartmentalizing or coping mechanism, it keeps things numb.

She imagines that then it hurts less.  She imagines wrong.  

“Best to keep it in the past, love. So far there’s not a sin I haven’t learned to forgive.”  She says it with pretend nonchalance.  

“What if I don’t want to leave it in the past?”

Breath catches quietly.

Bellanna slips out of bed in one fluid motion, holding Hilda’s face between tanned palms.

“I know this is sudden,” she says. “But I know what I want. I know that’s what you’ve always liked about me.”

“Yes. . . But Bell, love, your husband has _just_ died. That’s sudden, even for you.”

“I still _know_ , Hilda. I know I want you still.”

Hilda’s hands cup over hers, but she can feel the humor of it, of Hilda’s mind already making the decision that she cannot possibly mean what she says.

The sound in her throat is frogging and hoarse, she swoops down and captures Hilda’s lips with her own.

Hilda makes noise, a mix of surprise and squeal and schoolgirl fancy.

It is different than how it used to be.

Bellanna releases her lips, then releases her face. They are both breathing hard when she takes a step back.

“What do _you_ want to do?” She asks, peach lipstick mussed.

Hilda reaches up to fix it, blushes, pulls back, throws her hands up and sits down on the chair by the vanity.

“I wish people would stop asking me that. You never let me choose until I don’t want to.”

Bellanna licks her lips, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Who’s asked you that besides me?”

“What? People — _oh_ , it doesn’t matter who! What matter is, is. . . Well, we didn’t last the first time now, did we? I’d imagine the second go around would be even shorter.”

“The first time around,” Bellanna says, sidling up the front of Hilda, pulling her standing flush against her, hands tickling her chin then wrapping around her neck. The woman’s eyes are teasing and full of promise, the accent drawling and deep. Hilda’s knees warn they’re going weak, but this time she's not sure she likes it. 

“The first time, _Zelda_ didn’t want to share her little sister’s attention. And _I_ didn’t want to compete for my lover’s affection. But _now_ ,” her hands go lower to Hilda’s waist, then lower to the upper swell of her bum. “Now I don’t mind.”

She leans down, Hilda tilts up. They’re just about to kiss again, and then some, when there’s a sickening _crack!_ sound and Hilda goes down.

Bellanna screams. Then that stops too.

 

~*~

 

“Auntie Zee!” Sabrina yells the second she’s through the front door. The daylight isn’t even close to fading, but she fears they’ve already run out of time.

“Where are you?”

“Sabrina, what in the Devil’s name calls for all this noise?”

Zelda’s got a hand to her forehead, the other clutching her middle. Sabrina grabs the hand on her abdomen and clings tight.

“Where are Bellanna and Aunt Hilda?”

“They’re in her bedroom, why—“

But Sabrina’s already pounding up the steps, and that’s when they hear the scream.

Zelda’s by Sabrina’s side in less than a second. They burst through the door together, gasp at the sight of Hilda on the floor, eyes closed. Bellanna’s crouched by her side, afraid and clutching her limp hand and staring up at her attacker.

It’s a blonde woman, shorter than Zelda but taller than Hilda, heaving deep breaths and holding a dented lamp in her right hand.

Her fingers twitch. One of them is missing.

She turns to the incoming intruders and there’s wildness in her eyes, magic swirling behind them and out of control.

“Stay back,” she warns.

Zelda puts an arm in front of Sabrina, mutters an incantation and Sabrina knows whatever this insane witch throws at them will now hit Zelda first.

“Just stay calm,” Sabrina says. She’s not sure she’s talking to the witch or herself.

“Let’s just talk things out.”

The woman laughs. It’s high and snapped and on the edge of something dangerous.

“Do you know her?” Zelda hisses to Bellanna, because she needs a name to cast a spell. Bellanna nods weakly.

“Jessa, my husband’s company accountant. But I don’t understand — what’s going on? Jessa, why are you doing this?”

Jessa licks her lips, raises her hands as if to start casting, Sabrina interjects with a soothing voice she did not know she possessed. She talks slow and hypnotic, as one does to calm a snarling dog.  

“Warren was planning to build another oil rig. It was a risky move, but he’d always liked those. This one though was very obviously wrong, and it was going to cost him everything. Isn’t that right, Jessa?”

Jessa nods once sharply. Blinks twice like a skittish bird. Her gaze doesn’t waver.

“You tried to reason with him, but he just wouldn’t listen.”

Sabrina inches closer. The lamp goes up and she scatters back.

“You’d only meant to scare him that night, with a black hat that covered your face and threat, right? You knew he’d been stressed out about rival companies. You just wanted him to back off.”

Jessa’s lip quivers and the lamp goes down a smidgeon.

Sabrina watches as sunlight through the windows glisten off the steel, praises Satan there’s no blood on the dent.

Hilda still doesn’t wake.

Zelda is shielding Sabrina, but her eyes haven’t once strayed from her sister’s prone body.

“ _You_ killed Warren?”

Bellanna’s voice is accusatory and angry. Jessa advances on the Spellmans again and Sabrina internally curses Bellanna’s passion.

It’s valid, but dangerous.

“She didn’t mean to,” Sabrina defends, her hands out to calm the panicked woman. “But he thought she was a thug and fought back. Bit off Jessa’s finger.”

Jessa flinches.

“It was just self-defense.”

She doesn’t relax, but the tension has lowered a fraction.

“And then Pierce Knotwood. He found out.”

Sabrina’s not trying to upset her, really, she’s not, but the pieces are coming together, and she sees the puzzle for what it is.

“You didn’t want to hurt him either, but he confronted you at the party, and Bellanna was already in enough pain.”

She nods, and Sabrina senses a breakthrough in other women’s minds.

“And the reason you killed Warren, killed Pierce, did everything you had to do. . . Who was it for?”

Jessa swallows hard.

“It was for you.” She says to Bellanna. The brunette gapes.

“I did it for you. To protect you. I couldn’t let you lose everything.”

Bellanna stands. Zelda holds out a hand in warning.

Bellanna doesn’t look at anyone besides Jessa, takes slow and steady steps toward her.

“Why?”

Her hands reach out, clasp around Jessa’s neck as they had clasped around Hilda’s.

Jessa’s eyes are very wide and still very owlish. She licks her lip again.

“Because I love you.”

“You love me?”

She nods.

“Thank you,” Bellanna says. “And I’m very sorry.”

And then with shouted magic and brute physical force, she grabs Jessa tighter and tackles them both headfirst through the window.  

Sabrina shouts and rushes to the gaping window, mindful of the glass now scattered on the ground.

“They landed in the koi pond.” She calls to Zelda. “I think Bellanna is okay. Jessa’s out cold.”

But Zelda doesn’t respond.

Sabrina turns, sees her aunt kneeling over Hilda, hands shaking on her neck as she tries to find a pulse. Sabrina gasps, bolts to Zelda’s side.

“Is she okay?” The words whispered, as if too scary to be spoken aloud.

“I don’t know. I can’t find it. . .” Zelda’s voice wavers, the way it had so long ago in a nightmare-scape. She’s whispering too, shamefaced and terrified. “If she’s _not_ — I — It’s too far to teleport her to the Cain pit.”

There’s a halted moment, as they both imagine a world where Hilda isn’t in it.

Lily-livered doesn’t even _begin_ to describe the feeling that leaves Sabrina’s chest hollow and gaping. 

There is no air in this waiting space. 

Hilda takes in a deep breath. They release theirs.

“ _Praise Satan_.”

Zelda’s exclamation is too fervent to just be relief.

Hilda’s blue-eyeshadowed lids begin to flutter, Zelda laughs wetly and joyous.

“What the _sod_ just happened?” Comes Hilda’s weak-voiced question.

Zelda grips her hand tightly, gently. Kisses the palm and then the back and then each of her fingers. She reaches out for Sabrina’s hand and they just sit there, all holding together. 

"Really," Hilda whispers after a moment, wincing in pain and bewilderment. "What's just happened?" 

“Yes, I’d like to know that as well,” Zelda manages through all this emotion.

There it is, a mother’s priority even in all this chaos — figuring out just how much trouble Sabrina should be in.

Sabrina grins, too amazed at being alive and Hilda being alive and her actually solving a _murder_ (two of them!) to truly feel sheepish.

“Well, it all started with me sneaking out and hiding in a strange man’s car. . .”

 

~*~

 

They stay another week because Hilda’s got a proper concussion and Bellanna insists they rest here. She hovers outside Hilda’s door but never enters it, pacing the hall and absentmindedly scratching at the bandages on her arms.

There's elegance permanently etched in her features, but there's guilt there too.  She'd lost so much in such a short time, but Hilda hadn't deserved to be rebound, to be clung to.  The affection is real though, so she waits in the hall. She thinks on her moment of rage against Jessa, remembers the violence. Knows she'd do it again. 

She touches her bindings often.  

Given she’d fallen headfirst from a window in a second story house, the stitches on her face and arms are a rather miraculous mercy.

Jessa'd survived too. The high priestess is still deciding what to do with her.

Seymour, suddenly present once the ruckus had died down (Sabrina had rolled her eyes at him so well it was Zelda worthy), took it as his personal duty to take Sabrina around the city. They drink yerba mate and dance tangos and Sabrina feels silly and safely tourist with every adventure.

Zelda stays by Hilda’s side, keeping her company, entertained and informed, even going so far as to read a chapter of the book Hilda had brought with her (but only managing a chapter, calling it “ _absolute drivel_ ” and tossing it out the open window).

Hilda pouts but is ultimately a good patient, milking it for as much as she’s able. She can take Zelda’s rolling eyes if it means she gets another cup of tea.

When the week is over and they’re all sharing one last dinner together, Bellanna still offers for Hilda to stay. She smiles her little crinkly smile and gently turns it down.

Sabrina sighs in relief, Zelda bites her tongue.

They settle into bed for one last night. Sabrina closes her eyes and pretends immediate sleep. Her aunts’ voices are tentative and soft.

“Is this truly what you want?” Zelda asks, and there’s a promise in there that she’ll let Hilda go if she has to. “I know you like this coven.  You don’t have to go back with me. You could stay.”

And there’s a rustling sound as Hilda scooches closer, and Sabrina’s pretty sure she’s holding Zelda’s face between her hands.

“I know what I want.”

The sound of lips meeting lips.

A sigh of absolute happy.

“We’re going home tomorrow. Together.”

“I want that too.”

Another sigh, another kiss.

And then Sabrina really does slumber, dreaming of the days to come and the stories she’ll tell Ambrose and the place she’s going back to.

The Spellmans sleep and wait for the morning to bring them home. 

 

~*~ 

 

Ambrose is suspiciously meek when the Spellman women get back.

He is smiling a little too sweetly. 

The house internal gives evidence to their absence, to his crazy party mayhem. 

"So," he tries, already knowing that if he wasn't house-bound already, he would be now.  For so much longer. 

"You are _never_ going to believe my story. . ." 

"Cous," Sabrina says, and her voice tells a tale on its own. 

"You are never going to believe _mine_." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! i hope you liked this lil mystery - i had a lot of fun writing it!  
> hopefully i will be updating my other fic soon/writing new ones.  
> until then, i hope you are all doing well and hanging in there  
> much love <3


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